


Think I was blind before I met you

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 08:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1851700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS leaves and they're suddenly both very alone and very human, clutching onto each other's hands as though they're the only solid thing in the universe. </p><p>And he's not sure who he is, any more. </p><p>A look at TenToo and Rose on the beach while they wait to go to the place they now call home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Think I was blind before I met you

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Written for the Doctor Who Secret Santa on Tumblr, back in December 2013. My wonderful giftee requested “Something cute”. I tried my best, I really did, but I don’t think I got the adorable scale quite up to the correct standards. I’m terribly sorry if this is the case – please, please, please feel free to request another fic, dear. No, really: this fic idea has been begging to be written since July last year but I always put it off because I was too scared that what I saw in my head wouldn’t translate properly to paper. My fears were warranted, but at least I was motivated to get off my ass and do it. So thank you very much, lonelymonsterseekingcompanion! 
> 
> Based very, very solidly on Bright Eyes’ “First Day Of My Life”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW-4nWkx7Uk

He knew the eyes that stared back at him from the cracked, dirty mirror. That small little realization was, bizarrely, what threw him from his post-battle-saved-the-earth-again high into the darker depths of the emotion scale. He’d been too busy revelling – a little manically, he consented – in the _good_ and the _new_ and the way what _could have been_ contrasted so drastically with the majesty of _what was_ that he had not given his brain time to dwell on the sharper edges of reality.

Sharp edges such as the fact that he was stuck in a universe that wasn’t his, without a working TARDIS, with one heart and one life and the slow path and _eyes that he knew_. It was always startling having to figure out what who he was, exactly, when he regenerated. But figuring out his personality and his whims and his desires was a lot less jarring when he was a completely new person altogether. This time, the face that stared at him, attached to a _human_ body frozen with shock, was not unfamiliar. He’d had years to get to know every in and out of it. Except… except there were strange, new bits in him – bits of Donna, bits killing the Daleks had birthed – that he did not know, yet. And, quite honestly, the juxtaposition was… different. He wasn’t sure how to handle himself, and that was… almost scary.

The open tap began to whine in complaint and he finally snapped his gaze away from the reflection of new-old eyes so he could turn it off. There were still soapsuds on his hands but he wiped them on his trousers instead, unlocking the door to the tiny, dingy lavatory in a sort of daze. The lady at the reception desk – which was as dilapidated as the rest of the small, rambling inn on the shore – smiled as he put down the key. He must have shown some of the utter, overwhelming confusion and floundering emotions on his face because her smile turned softer and she pointed to the beach front.

“They’re out there,” she said in a heavy Norwegian accent. “Bought picnic.”

The Doctor continued to blink at her, his mind trapped on how the eyes he was blinking were the same but were also not the same. New body but old body. New him but old him. Human him. _Trapped_ him. No regeneration; just death. And it was so difficult to tell where the Time Lord’s memories stopped and his started. At what point had he been born? Had Donna seen him or the Time Lord naked? That seemed to be a very important question, all of a sudden – it burned in his chest like he was choking on something. Where had this body been, and where did it only _remember_ being?

“Celebrating?” the lady pressed, staring at him a little worriedly. “Eh… somebody’s birthday?” she guessed, hoping for a response like the cheerful, slightly cheeky greeting she’d received when the man bounced in _laughing_ about the need to use the bathroom, of all things.

“Yeah,” the Doctor found himself answering. “Yeah. It’s mine.” His actual birth day – the first day of his life.

“Happy birthday,” the woman beamed. “Many more.”

“Not that many more,” the Doctor muttered before he could stop himself. One heart. One life.

He shot the lady a huge grin, thanked her too brightly and made his way back outside. The air was cold and full of pitiful, tiny raindrops that threatened to turn into a downpour at any moment and he _felt_ them like he never had as a Time Lord. New-old body. New-old Doctor. Before he could stop the thought, he found himself mulling over the irony of the situation: he was born because of fire and rage and was thrust from it into the cold and the wet. Born on the threshold of battle – he’d had nowhere to go but through the doorway and straight into genocide. There had been no time to turn around and consider other options. Earth was stolen, the Daleks were winning and all around him stood the faces of his too-human friends. The door hadn’t been opened for him; he’d been created halfway through it already.

The raindrops splattered a little more persistently against his face as he made his way across the sands of Dårlig Ulv-Stranden and something of Donna in him made him turn his face to the sky. He stumbled forward blindly, staring at the expanse of swirling grey that held no answers, until the Jackie’s voice had him glancing down again. The sight of Jackie nattering away as she spread a blanket on the sea sand was blurred by the rainwater that had fallen into the Doctor’s eye and he had to blink a couple of times before the weather-defying, impromptu picnic came into proper focus.

His eyes immediately met Rose Tyler’s gaze.

She had a blanket unfolded in her hands and her hair tied back haphazardly but the look on her face was the same he’d seen just before she’d kissed him. Softness, vulnerability, a little bit of fear but so much shining, burning _Rose_ that she could set the universe on fire without the help of the Time Vortex. And, really, it was right that he saw Rose first: she was always the first face that he saw. The first face the war-damaged version of him had truly looked at. The first face the body that looked like his had seen. The first face he’d thought of when Donna had helped create him, because her face had been burning like aching fire in the mind of the Time Lord that had clung to her hand. He’d been wearing leather and the blood of millions and she’d been the one to open his eyes and show him he didn’t have to become what he’d destroyed. He’d offered to show her the universe, had told her it was because seeing things through companions’ eyes made it new and exciting and _alive_ ,but had never told her that she made him see things as though he’d never had eyes before.

The Doctor received a Rose Tyler smile, and the storm in him calmed. The sharp edges of reality did not blunt, but he finally saw them for what they were: pieces to a puzzle. He was human, trapped, new-old, directionless, unsure of who he was. But he was human with his Rose, trapped only because he’d chosen to be; because it wasn’t an alternative but the greatest victory he could ever have hoped to achieve. And that fact – the fact that he could walk up to Rose and hold her hand and never let go until he was finally ready to die – changed _everything_. Once again it was his pink and yellow girl who showed him the way to finding himself and fixing himself. Of course, there was no magic solution; he was not suddenly completely sure of who he was and how the hell he’d manage to survive like this, but he knew she’d show him. It didn’t matter that he didn’t know where his memories started and it didn’t matter that he didn’t know every fact about the universe he was rooted in so firmly from now until the day his single heart stopped. Because he knew, with certainty that vibrated to the very core of him, exactly where he wanted to go.

And he went.

Ignoring the picnic basket, ignoring the blankets, ignoring Jackie, the Doctor made a beeline for Rose. _Always towards her. Never away. Never again._ The silent promise was made to the air and the sand and the sea and the rain – anything that would listen and would stay and remember long after he’d gone. _Always towards her._

“Why’d it have to be bloody Norway?” Jackie grumped at him, causing him to unwillingly stop re-memorizing every bit of Rose’s face. “You could have dropped us off straight in London. Then we wouldn’t have to be sitting around in the rain and cold waiting for a bloody car home. Going to take hours! I’ll miss my shows!”

Rose’s fingers brushed against the back of his hand as she shifted her weight and his entire arm tingled. “I don’t make the rules,” he told Jackie patiently. “This is just where the crack was.”

“Well who decided to put it in _bloody Norway_?”

The Doctor and Rose met each other’s eyes and grinned, their secret shivering between them. And… Oh. _Oh_. She’d done it again. Come back, found him, saved him again. _His Rose_. His grin changed to a beam that threatened to break his face in two. His Rose. Her grin softened as his expanded and suddenly there were desperate fingers clutching at the hand that had been made especially to fit hers. His fingers flexed immediately, wrapping around hers a little frantically as he tried to make up for all the time he’d spent unable to touch her. Rose clung back just as hard, gripping tight like she was afraid if she let go he would disappear.

“Right. Fine. Smile at each other like idiots. I’m not staying out here, getting all wet. I’m going in search of a cup of tea.” Jackie suddenly stopped, mid-march, and looked at her daughter with a different expression entirely. “If we’re going to call another car, it has to be soon,” she warned.

The Doctor blinked in confusion but Rose nodded beside him. “I know, Mum. Thanks.”

Jackie nodded briefly before she turned and made her way back to the travesty of an inn. The Doctor kept his gaze on Rose, who was very _deliberately_ watching her mother’s progress. She was too still, he realized suddenly. Too quiet and too reserved. As though she could see the trouble that surrounded them while he could not. He squeezed her hand extra tight and she glanced at him, her smile half-mast. He continued to watch as her gaze slipped from his and turned instead to the blanket, which became their new destination a short while later. It was small and a little damp but it would do and their folded knees brushed as they sat and looked to the ocean.

“Car?” he inquired mildly, feeling her tense slightly. “I thought Pete was coming to get us?”

“He is,” Rose said slowly, picking at a loose thread in the blanket. “But… when Mum called him she didn’t… specifically mention… exactly who the ‘three of us’ are that he’s picking up.” Something funny happened in the Doctor’s chest; a sort of hitching and sinking at the same time. His mind began to churn out possible reasons for her words, and none of them were pretty. He clung to her hand stubbornly.

“The other car is for me,” he guessed slowly, and Rose’s shoulders hunched in affirmation.

“It’ll take you wherever you wanna go,” Rose mumbled and a brash bit of him wanted to yell _here here here_ at her.

“And… why do you think I’d take this car?” he queried next, remaining steady.

She finally looked at him, a fear in her eyes that made his breath stutter. She was scared he wanted to run again. Run from her. Before he could speak she answered, but it was not the answer he saw in the deepest, illogical part of her soul. “Torchwood internal politics.” He blinked at her, thrown, and she explained. “We kept as much as possible a secret from the people born into this universe. But we couldn’t keep everything silent, especially not with the stars going out and the Dimension Cannon. And Dad is boss at Torchwood, but he’s not boss of London and there are others-“

She broke off and took a deep breath. “If you come back with us, they will want to run tests on you. Dad and I can probably stop most of them, but not all of them. And then they will keep tabs on you. They will know about every move you make for the rest of your life. They can _intervene_ if they want. You’ll be…” Disgust and fury made her unable to find the right word. Her gaze was darker than he’d ever seen it, and he had to physically swallow to stop himself questioning how much she knew from personal experience. “But if you take another car and go somewhere different, nobody but Mum, me and Dad will know. And after a while they’ll stop asking questions. And when they do you can come to London. If you want,” she added quickly, her eyes scanning his face in the hopes she’d find some confirmation that he _really_ did want to spend his life with her.

“How long is ‘a while’?” Her eyes crinkled in misery and his gut clenched and it was so funny because a few hours ago a hundred years would have been nothing to him and yet here he was looking at possibly about a decade and it seemed like a gaping, never-ending darkness. “Ah. I see.”

Rose watched him in silence as he thought it over. His mind went to a million different places as he fixed an unseeing gaze on her eyes. The thought of being tracked like an animal made every bit of his heart and mind rebel. The thought of living on the same planet, in the same time as Rose and being unable to even see her was, however, a hundred times worse. Subconsciously he reached up his free hand and toyed with her hair. She shifted closer, her body heat washing over him in soothing waves.

“What are a few more years?” He meant it as bitter irony; a statement about a reality that was honestly impossible for his sanity to comprehend.

She took it as him trying to soothe himself. Her smile was fragile but there; she was even stronger than he remembered her being. “You could brush up on the history of this world. See some of the wonders the other Earth doesn’t have. You could… pick up a new graduate and show them the places they’ve always dreamed of going…” His fingers slipped from her hair to her cheek and she leant into him, trying not to crumble even as he saw her lip quiver. “That’s the thing, you know, about humans and relationships.” She blurted it so suddenly he knew that it was for her benefit and not for his; she was trying to talk herself into believing him leaving was the only way. The best way. “They take forever. You can be with a person your whole life and you’ll still have to learn and work and… it’s hard work. The slow life is hard work,” she whispered. Some fear from the bathroom slithered in his gut, but he silenced it. “And you… you have so much to learn about being slow.”

“I’ll be the slowest of the lot at being slow,” he agreed, forcing a smile that she tried to match. “But you know what, Rose Tyler?” She looked at him, at best hoping he’d say he’d come back to her when he could. He curved his hand around her neck. “For hundreds of years my home has not been Gallifrey.”

“You made Earth your home,” she supplied, trying to follow where he was going.

The Doctor smiled. “My honourary home, yeah. But mostly it’s been in the TARDIS. Wherever she took me. But now…” Rose’s eyes tightened with guilt and sorrow and he automatically squeezed her hand tight to chase it away. “In this universe it’s something else. And I… I just…” _He needs you. That’s very me._ How that burning coal of truth had cost the Time Lord dearly. But how it now sat in his chest and burned away the cold. “I just want to go home, Rose.”

She looked at him, miserable, damp and confused. “Doctor… I don’t…?”

“Home, Rose Tyler,” he said very gently, cupping her face, “to borrow a phrase from some wonderful human poets and musicians, is you. Home is where you are.”

She relaxed, tension pouring out of her as she let out a shaky little laugh and closed her eyes. He saw the flush of embarrassed pleasure heat up her cheeks and he grinned, wide and radiant. She slipped her free hand over the one cupping her cheek and then, as though afraid she’d talk herself out of it, swiftly placed a kiss to his palm.

“If you want,” he amended, his smile gentle now.

This time, she answered his question. “Of course.” She swallowed a few times. “Any time. Every time. Forever.” Her grin was a little manic and he had to laugh, breathless and clutching at her and burning from the inside out in the most glorious way he’d ever felt.

His Rose. His Rose.

Their foreheads bumped together and they both shifted even closer, bodies knitting together as though they’d never stopped hugging each other close for a moment. His fingers moved up her arm and suddenly came into contact with a thin, course object tied around her wrist. Upon inspection it turned out to be colourful string, knotted expertly and supporting dirt from what appeared to be a hundred different places.

"What is it you have to remember?" he asked, amused at the sight.

Rose ducked her head at once, eyes sliding away as her cheeks flushed before him. “Uh…”

"What?" He chortled, amused at the thought of her reminding herself that way. She still did not meet his eyes and he tugged at the string playfully. “What did you keep forgetting to do?”

Her answering mumble was so soft he almost missed it. “Sleep.” His hand stilled and she looked back up, embarrassment still dancing across her cheeks. “Getting everybody to stop flipping out because of the stars and agree to the Cannon and not ask too many questions and not kill each other was… a chore. And then when I actually started hopping… time moves differently in the different universes. So sometimes I just… didn’t have enough sleep or had bigger things to worry about and then Mickey and Jake had enough and made me the band to remind me to just… sleep.”

The evidence of Rose’s story was bruised under her eyes, hidden until that moment from the Doctor’s sight by a substantial amount of makeup. He wanted to wash it all away so he could see – _see what he’d done to her_ – but he held his trembling hands still, letting her continue to cling to him as she watched the emotions cross his face.

“How many nights?” he asked her quietly, his voice dipping low and forced-calm. How many nights had she worked without sleep? How many days had she pushed herself to the edge of her capacity? How many nights had she driven herself past endurance just so she could get to him? He should have _known_ she would be relentless; hadn’t her opening the TARDIS herself to get back to him when he sent her away been evidence enough of what was stored in Rose Tyler’s soul? Hadn’t she packed up her family and driven straight through the night on the whim of a dream, just to stand before a projection of him and watch him miss his last chance to tell her how she’d carved himself into his very being? “How many universes?”

She shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. Some of them were the same, but the wrong time. I got to the right universe a few times but I was always way off or I just, just missed you.” The trembling was back at her lip and now leaked into her voice. The Doctor could imagine all too well her determination and her desperation and her disappointment. Wrong place, wrong time – over and over and over again until she honestly lost count. “And some of those I accidentally visited twice looked completely different; the different time periods changed _everything_. And some were so similar… Full of… blood and death and war like I’d never seen before…”

The Doctor pulled her closer at once, instinctively wrapping her in his arms and cursing everything he could think of that she’d had to see that. She curled into him gratefully, seeking solace in his jacket and he had to wonder if she’d ever talked about what she’d seen with anybody. “They’re all over now. They were just… nightmares.”

“Yeah.” Her laugh is a little too hysterical for his liking. “Some of them…” She hesitated and he held her even closer until she could whisper the confession into his shirt. “Some of them were my fault. I said things I shouldn’t have and it… it changed everything. One moment everything was fine and then…”

He rested his chin on her head and watched her struggle to deal with her guilt and horror. He couldn’t tell her it was okay – it wasn’t. But he could tell her that no matter what he was there and he understood and she’d saved so many billions and while it didn’t make it better it meant she’d learnt from herself instead of destroyed herself. A lesson, he’d add, that she’d taught him over and over and over. But he didn’t get to speak, because Rose went on, confessing now to his right shoulder.

“I got really careful, though. Made sure to mention only the really, really important bits. Left nothing behind. Took nothing with me.” There was a pause. “And yet… this world still changed because of it.”

“What do you mean? What changed?” He looked down at her, a little alarmed, but she smiled back up at him.

“Everything,” she breathed with a little laugh. His look led her to elaborate. “This beach is beautiful. Look at it.” He did. The scenery was breath-taking, the ocean magnificent, the rolling sand picturesque; nature at its wildest and most haunting. “I can see that, now. I’m looking at it and it’s beautiful but for so many years this was the eighth circle of hell. I hated this beach with everything I had.” His heart twisted and he mumbled her name into her hair. She simply continued to smile. “And now… Now I _see_ it. And I _see_ everything in this world. I’m thinking about my job differently. I see Torchwood differently. My friends, my life here, my family… It’s like before they were just… background noises and sights. Paint on the wall or inconsequential tools I had to use to stay alive until I got back to reality. But I’m…” She struggled for the words, threading her hand through his hair with a look of slight awe on her face. “I’m awake now. I see everything and it’s all… changed. It’s like… I’m New, New Rose, now.” She grinned at him. “New, New Rose on the first day of her life,” she finished in a murmur.

The Doctor had to grin at her, practically bursting with pride and understanding and excitement that she knew and felt it too. Love… Oh, he’d never understood that word or emotion until that day; never in his wildest, greatest intelligence grasped how roared like fire in every cell of his body as he held one grown-up human girl close to his chest. The grin faded a little, and his hand went to her hair.

“What was the worst universe you saw?” he asked her quietly.

Her lips thinned and she curled in closer. “It was…” He waited patiently while she found her tongue. “It was very similar to our old one. Very, very similar. And I was actually in that one. Only… the me there called in sick on the fifth of March. So… Hendricks got blown up but nobody – not even her – knew _why_. She gave an interview for the paper saying she was glad she’d caught a cold and was one of those hoping for compensation now that she was out of a job. And she… she ended up marrying Mickey Smith…if they had kids, they never put it in the paper. And I went to her grave and…” Her breath hitched and he all but suffocated her, he held her so close.

“Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay. That wasn’t you. You’re right here. Oh, Rose…”

“It wasn’t that she was dead. Okay, that was kinda creepy too and made me feel… funny… but it’s…” She looked up at him and was suddenly nineteen again. “She never met you. She lived her whole life and never saw you _once_ and it just…” She shook her head wildly, refusing to come to grips with that reality. “It was so _plausible_ and possible that I just…”

He kissed her temple and held his lips there until her breathing evened out again. “I’m right here. You met me. In the shop. I grabbed your hand and told you to run and you did. You never stopped. My Rose.”

She sat up completely and looked at him head-on. “I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you.” It burned through her words and in her eyes and he kissed her forehead hesitantly – it still felt so strange to be allowed to touch her and kiss her without the fear of losing her one day too soon for him – until she closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder.

“I know. Me too, Rose. Me too.”

There was silence for a while as they simply sat, holding on to each other and curling away from the ever-persistent drizzle. “The scariest part was they lived in an apartment just like I have now. That Mickey and Rose, I mean. Almost the exact same apartment.”

“The universes are funny like that,” he soothed her gently. “There are a million little similarities between them all. It’s just a coincidence that it was the apartment.” She relaxed even further and he had to smirk. “You’ve got your own place? What, did Jackie kick you out?”

She grimaced. “No but… It was time for me to leave home. Properly. I still visit at least three times a week but I… after _that day_ I just couldn’t go back and live under Mum’s roof any more. It took a while to talk her around to it, but Dad helped.” Suddenly she flashed him the cheeky grin he’d missed so. “It’s got a mortgage. And _carpets_ and curtains and everything.”

“The _horror_ ,” he teased back. “I don’t think I can know you, any more. Ugh. What terrible language you’ve picked up in this place, Rose Tyler.”

She laughed at him. “It’s a nice place. Practical and close to work and Jake and Mickey helped me fix it up nicely. In fact… it would fetch a good place if I sold it.” Rose’s eyes met his again.

His brow furrowed. “You want to sell it? Why?”

“Well,” she said slowly, as though she was just figuring things out for herself. “Now that you’re declaring yourself to Torchwood you can – after they’ve deemed you ‘fit’ or whatever the heck they use now – live anywhere you want. And because you’re not a secret I could go with you. And it’s not the same as the entire universe but I’m… I’m not going to trap you in London.”

“Your family is there. Tony, Jackie, Pete. Your job. Your friends… you’re happy there.”

“When will you learn,” she laughed at him, eyes shining and tongue poking out, “that I meant it when I said I made my choice a long time ago? I was happy with you on that tiny little rock in the middle of space with the flesh eating slug-things. I was happy with you on Mars. A new city or town or jungle on planet Earth won’t make a difference. Doctor.” It was her turn to cup his face in her hands, trailing her thumbs against the corners of his mouth. “I don’t care where you want to go. I’ll be with you, same as always, and I’ll be happy.”

“The old team.” He was beaming hard enough to break something.

“Shiver and Shake,” she grinned right back, tongue between her teeth and shining. “Like it should be.”

The sky chose that moment to desist in the light misty sprinkle it had been showering upon them and instead opened up with the threat of a coming flood. With yelps and howls of laughter Rose and the Doctor both sprang to their feet and snatched at the basket and blankets blindly. Somehow, even in the giddy half-chaos, their hands found each other.

“Run!” they yelled together, sprinting up the beach toward the inn.

Jackie moaned at them terribly as they collapsed inside the almost non-existent communal lounge, dripping wet and breathless with laughter. But she did move to the worn-down armchair, giving them the slightly stained couch to collapse on. They cuddled together for warmth and just _because_ , content to try and make sense of whatever half-unfocused characters raptured Jackie so. Rose’s mum was silent for the most part, but when it came to the climax of the episode – a wedding between two who had obviously fallen in and out of love more times than the show had seasons – she began to pipe up.

“Doesn’t work like that, though,” she told the TV derisively, even though she’d had her hands clasped together in delight when Charles Somebody-Or-Other managed to practically rise from the dead. “Love doesn’t work like that. Even if you love somebody that much, doesn’t mean it _will_ work out. Bloody hard work, that’s what it is. All the time. Work, not a miracle cure.”

Rose and the Doctor barely supressed their smiles as she continued to throw not-so-subtle hints their way. Their hands were intertwined firmly as they sat, but the distance of years and universes still settled between them like a barely-healed wound. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows once, a look she gave a rueful smile to. They both knew it would be difficult. They both knew that there was no guarantee that it would not end – _never say never_ – and they both knew it would take work. Work they’d sometimes not want to do. And it would hurt – it already had – and sometimes they might even wish they hadn’t tried. But they were Rose Tyler and the Doctor; impossible was not in their vocabulary. Besides, the Doctor mused as he moved Rose’s wet hair from her eyes, he preferred making the change to hoping it would happen on its own. Especially if he was working for something as worth it as Rose.

Two movies later, a black SUV with tinted windows pulled up outside the inn. One imposing man in a tight suit came inside, introduced himself only as Harvey and said he was to take them to the halfway mark where they’d be met by Pete himself. Jackie argued, of course, refusing to just go along with some ‘overgrown Men in Black wannabe’, and it took a phone call from Pete to convince her to go. Rose and the Doctor glanced at each other.

“Last chance,” she murmured. “You could run. We could both run. Maybe, because I jumped universes I can give them the slip…”

He walked over to her with a gentle smile. “Not this time, Rose Tyler. This time we’re running into trouble, not away from it.”

She grinned broadly. “I like the sound of that.”

“Of course you do,” he beamed, delighted by the cheekiness in her eyes.

Harvey asked them to walk outside and they both glanced at the black SUV and then back at each other. He’d never done this before. He’d never given up the stars, least of all for a human girl. And there had been those who had wanted it of him. So many of those who had loved and who he’d… Well… Look at what had happened to them. His Sarah Jane…

But this time was different. This time it was Rose.

“How long are you going to stay with me?”

She laughed, threading their hands together with ease. Without hesitation they walked up to the open car door, ignoring the shifting men in suits and shades.

“Forever.”

He believed her, of course. And that day was just the start of all eternity.


End file.
